Electrical device for welding human tissue approved for surgical use in Russia

Ukranian company International Association Welding (IAW) has adapted welding technology to bond human tissue in surgery. The device has been tested in over 7000 surgical operations in the Ukraine and has now been approved for use in Russia, giving the go-ahead for commercial production.

The device bonds and reconnects living soft biological tissue through fusion without the use of materials such as sutures, staples, sealant or glue.

CSMG Technologies, Inc., (OTC Bulletin Board: CTUM) a technology management company that invested in the technology, has announced that the Russian Federal Service of Health Care and Social Development has approved the tissue welding electro surgery generator and eight instruments for commercial use in its hospitals and clinics.

CSMG owns the technology and exclusive world rights to the live tissue bonding device through Live Tissue Connect, Inc. (LTC), a subsidiary corporation formed for the development and exploitation of the platform technology.

Donald S. Robbins, President and CEO of CSMG said, “This is an achievement of monumental proportions for IAW and CSMG. We expect to immediately begin implementing our plans with IAW to manufacture, market and distribute the tissue welding electrosurgery device and hand instruments in both Ukraine and Russia.

"Russia and Ukraine have a combined population of about 200 million people with rich industrial, natural and scientific resources. A world class team of surgeons, scientists, patent authors and engineers are working on the technology at the E.O. Paton Institute of Electric Welding in Kiev, Ukraine.

"We believe sales in Russia and Ukraine could reach $7 to $10 million in 2008 and could grow at a rate of as much as 50% per year for the next several years in these two rapidly expanding medical markets,” said Donald S. Robbins, President and CEO."

“Russian clinical work was performed by surgeons at Hospital #1 in Moscow and Povlov University Hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia. We were only able to bring the live tissue welding technology from an idea stage to its current level of a unique and revolutionary surgical product because of the R&D funding and support provided by our long time partner CSMG Technologies,” said Dr. Alexander T Zeluichenko, Director of the International Association Welding, Kiev, Ukraine.

“Welding technologies are victoriously walking around the earth, underwater and in space. Nowadays welding is being successfully used in medicine for bonding damaged human tissue and restoring physiological function of human organs,” says academician BE Paton, EO Paton Institute of Electric Welding, President of the National Academy of Science, Kiev, Ukraine.

LTC expects to complete the commercial hand instruments, electrocautery generator and other electrosurgery components for the tissue welding system and begin product distribution with IAW in the 4th quarter of 2007 for the Russian and Ukrainian markets now that all necessary approvals have been received in these countries.

Surgeons at 27 Ukraine hospitals and clinics are using the tissue welding/bonding technology in clinical trials. They have completed more than 7,000 human surgeries using more than 80 types of open and laparoscopic surgical procedures, demonstrating the technology is universal in its ability to repair soft biological tissue.

The technology was invented and developed at the internationally renowned E.O. Paton Institute of Electric Welding, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine, headed by Professor B.E. Paton. U.S., Australian, Canadian and European Union patents have been issued, and additional U.S. and foreign patents are pending, all owned by LTC.